The Adventures of Johnny Northside

Being the amazing, true-to-life adventures and (very likely) misadventures of a writer who seeks to take his education, activism and seemingly boundless energy to North Minneapolis, (NoMi) to help with a process of turning a rapidly revitalizing neighborhood into something approaching Urban Utopia. I am here to be near my child. From 02/08 to 06/15 this blog pushed free speech to the envelope, so others could take heart and speak unafraid. Email me at hoffjohnw@gmail.com

Friday, August 7, 2015

A Golden Valley man was driving drunk at over 100 miles per hour the night he smashed into and killed a young couple in Minneapolis. Allegedly, he said he has no memory of it. Allegedly, he also seems to have no memory of the don't drink and drive campaign. Allegedly he has forgotten, Thou shalt not kill...

"This company is beginning to be like a bad virus to our community..." - Google reviewer

"Havenbrook Homes has bought up hundreds of properties within the city of Atlanta, and become an absolute plague on our communities." - Google reviewer

"RUN!!!" - Google reviewer

It's never a good sign when your landlord is compared to a devastating disease outbreak. A quick search of online reviews and the Better Business Bureau will give you a sense of the public's view of the Duluth, GA based investment firm, Havenbrook Homes...

James Early was playing with a .38-caliber pistol at his older brother's Minneapolis house on Sept. 6. 2013 when the gun discharged, wounding his 2-month-old nephew, Isaac Early Jr. James claimed he found the loaded gun on...

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Since this photo was published on a blog operated by theCity of Minneapolis, click here for link, I assert this photois a public document in the public domain, but in any caseit would also be used under Fair Comment and Criticism,blog post by John Hoff

No Justice, No Peacock Nobody I know says "peacock" for PCOC, the Police Conduct Oversight Commission of the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights. Which is a shame, because a peacock comes in many colors but has a beautiful unified symmetry...kind of like the PCOC. The citizens on this commission know how serious, how hotly political their task is (their narrow, oh-so-ordinance-limited and strictly defined police conduct oversight task) and I think the PCOC handles it pretty well, considering every meeting features a room full of shrill critics and dubious doubters with an axe to grind against anything in a blue shirt...

Top photo is self-portrait found in a pawn shop camera, the authorof which was previously unknown, below is mug shot composite, used here for free speech comment and criticism specifically regarding the photo images, blog post by John Hoff

From 2008 to 2011, this blogger went through a series of cheap pawn shop cameras. But the camera I purchased around February 2011 lasted me through Afghanistan and continues to last, even though the battery and memory card compartment is held together with duct tape. And nowadays I mostly use my cell phone for pictures, a cell phone also purchased secondhand. But in 2011 I published a photo, at the top, of somebody who had previously owned or shall we say POSSESSED my camera before I turned it up in a Minneapolis pawn shop...

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Photo, blog post by John HoffThis blog wishes to mention, belatedly, the passing away of Janet Joy Mattice, the kind-but-controversial cat lady who constantly helped and advocated for all animals, but mostly stray cats. She was 79 years old and passed away April 18, 2015. Click here for a link to her online tribute. Janet preferred to be known by her middle name of Joy.

In a kind of last laugh directed at the world and those who opposed her feeding of strays, Joy's obituary directs any memorial donations be preferred to Feline Rescue and MN Snap.

Police in Brooklyn Center responding to a report of a bleeding woman found blood and glass all over the place, and a victim who said she tripped over a laundry basket into a picture frame. In another room, sitting "straight up and very still" on the edge of a bed, officers located the woman's three-year-old girl. They asked the little girl how mommy got hurt and the child told police...

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Historical photo, no copyright, used for illustration, blog post by John Hoff

This story came to me outside my usual process, but I know the information to be trustworthy. On March 4, Metro Transit police were dispatched to Metro Transit Bus 1645. They knew exactly who they were looking for, and exactly why.When police boarded the bus, which was pulled over at Xerxes Ave. and Northway Drive, they went straight for Gerard Magee, Jr., DOB 4/22/84...

Monday, March 23, 2015

A Legacy Of IdeasBefore this blog retires in June of 2015, I hope to leave behind a legacy of editorials. Normally, I prefer to write facts and maybe squeeze in an editorial comment here and there. I feel that's a more effective way of writing. But there will be fact-laden criminal complaints to write about until the moment I hang up my bloggy spurs. So if I don't pause from writing up facts to write up some of my ideas in editorials, well, these ideas just won't get written because after blogging it's going to be the writing of novels, baby...